Arecibo Radio Observatory Platform Support Cables

Description

Arecibo Radio Telescope built in the late 60's is the largest single dish installation in the world for radio astronomy. "The main collecting dish is 305 m (1,000 ft) in diameter, constructed inside the depression left by a karst sinkhole. It contains the largest curved
focusing dish on Earth, giving Arecibo the largest electromagnetic-wave-gathering capacity. The dish surface is made of 38,778 perforated aluminum panels, each measuring about 3 by 6 feet (1 by 2 m), supported by a mesh of steel cables. The telescope has three radar transmitters, with effective isotropic radiated powers of 20 TW at 2380 MHz, 2.5 TW (pulse peak) at 430 MHz, and 300 MW at 47 MHz.". Used to discover exo-planets, study stars, mapping of meteors and aster, comets and life in other planets. Location for many blockbuster movies that include Species and James Bond 007. show lessmore